Did you know that there are 10,000 species of wood in the world that are harvested for timber?

What’s even more interesting is that there’s an entire international group of wood fanatics who collect, trade, sell, and share sample specimens from these 10,000 different species. They’re collectively known as The International Wood Collectors Society (www.woodcollectors.org).

In order to have some consistency to the specimens, they determined that a wood sample has to measure 1/2″ thick, 3″ wide, and 6″ long.

It was 1937 in India when George Nakashima built his first wood furniture. He’d been trained in architecture and worked under an American architect Antonin Raymond for several years.

Nakashima moved to Seattle in 1940 and taught woodworking for a short period until he was sent to Camp Minidoka, a World War II Japanese interment camp in Idaho, in the wake of the bombing at Pearl Harbor. At Minidoka, though, Nakashima met a man who had been trained in Japanese woodworking hand tools and joinery techniques – under him, Nakashima studied and mastered the craft and techniques.